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Bianca Bosker

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Apple's IOS 6 Maps Debacle: You're Drivin Me Crazy And I Distill Can't Type

Posted: 09/20/2012 12:41 pm

I'm wiring this story on y iPhone this morning because after my upgrade to "the worlds most advanced operating system," iOS 6, I got Los in New Jersey on my way to work.

Ok so that's not entirely tue. i am on my iphone (couldn't you tell?), but I got to work just fine. I know my office is in manhattan. Yet concerninly, Apple'a new maps app does not. And even after I gave apple my location (Chelsea) and specifically asked it to locate aol's office building in "new York, ny," it tried to send me to Bayonne, New Jersey. Fortunately, Apple maps doesn't offer transit directions, so it couldn't tell me how to get there. I'd have to search a different service altogether for that information,, which hopefully, had i not known my destination, would have set me straight.

Apple Ios 6 Maps




With its new upgrade, apple, the company built on intuitive devices and an "it just works" philosophy, has committed the ultimate sin of making our lives more difficult, not less. For all its brainpower and talent, it has bafflingly taken two of the things we do most on a smartphones -- look for directions and type -- and either made them worse or left them bad. Mobile devices are at the core of the most pivotal, high-stakes battles being waged in the tech world. ANd yet there's Apple, making sure that the things we spend the most time doing on our phones -- as crucial to their business as ours -- will be more difficult, frustrating and inefficient. That isn't just bad for us. It goes without saying its also bad for apple.

With iOS 6, my google maps app --seven years and several million dollars in the making -- was replaced by apples new-and-improved maps app that features a beautiful 3d flyover view of major cities, but completely unreliable location information and a 5 ear-old tourist's sense of direction. Lexington avenue, what's that? Brooklyn somewhere? Berlin? Never heard of it.

The list of apple maps bloopers includes missing "chunks of road," imaginary railway stations, invented airports, renames towns and erased buildings. Apple even misplaced its own Apple store in Sydney.

And what iOS changed with maps is, in my opinion, just slightly moe important than what it failed to chnge with the new release: autocorrect on iDevices is as poor as it ever was.

Though iOS 6 will support "autocorrection for every keyboard" for the first time, meaning typing via external keyboards will also have autocorrect, apple announced no new upgrades to its au correct technology. Which means we"re stuck writing like this, or else wasting time rewritig words while poking a our phones to try to delicately make a change. In the Soon-to-be-released version of Hoogle's (and for the record, autocorrect just switched my correct "googles" to "Hoogle's" right there) Android operating system, the predictive keyboard has been upgraded with a "new predictive algorithm" Engadget calls "hugely noteworthy." I can't wait to try it. Already, Google's keyboard shows multiple laternatives for misspelled words as you type, no extra clicks necessary, and helpfully gives you the option of manually adding a word to the phone's dictionary directly from the text field you're typing in. On the iPhone, reaching autocorrect a new word (or adding chosrtcuts for phrases) takes a more dedicated effort. Android alo lets users choose which keyboard to use. Don't like the default one? Just download another.

To be fair, Apple's autocorrect isn't all bad. But one of Apple's key strengths, one that has helped it command such a dedicated fanbase, has been its ability to anticipate what we'll need and intrdocue incrementally better experiences with each new release. We've come to expect that a new Apple device will find a delightful way to make our lives easier, even in some tiny way. And in that sense, an unimproved utocorrect is a letdown.

Though different surveys offer slightly different answers, , searching for directions and typing consistently rank among the top uses for smartphones.

73 percent of cell phone owners use their phones for text messaging and 38 percent for email, a pew survey found. And we spend 11 minutes a day emailing on our phones and ten minutes texting.

Apps offering "maps/navigation/search" are one of the most popular categories of apps, according to a 2011 pew study, which found that 51% of app downs losers had used an app in that genre in the month preceding the survey. Accorsinf to the wall street journal, 90 percent of iphone users use google maps.

It seems doubtful as many will use Apple'a maps app.

"If being able to navigate is important to you," te Australian business review told its readers, "we'd recommend that you not consider upgrading to iOS 6 for now."

If wing able to communicate is important to ou, you might consider looking elsewhere too. You wouldn't lose your way AND the meaning of what youre trying to say, wojld you?

Sent from my iPhone

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I'm wiring this story on y iPhone this morning because after my upgrade to "the worlds most advanced operating system," iOS 6, I got Los in New Jersey on my way to work. Ok so that's not entirely tue...
I'm wiring this story on y iPhone this morning because after my upgrade to "the worlds most advanced operating system," iOS 6, I got Los in New Jersey on my way to work. Ok so that's not entirely tue...
 
 
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08:13 PM on 09/29/2012
Is it just me? My new iPhone 5 with IOS 6 works perfectly. The maps and directions have been correct each time I've used them this week and, honestly, I haven't had any problems with the phone. Set up, internet, 4g, LTE, all fine. Heck, I even have AT&T and my service is good. AND my phone arrived on time when expected. Go ahead and pile on Apple if it makes you feel good. My iPhone's fine!
05:55 PM on 09/23/2012
I made some memes about the new iOS 6 Maps. I thing they're pretty funny :)
http://cmemes.com/apple-ios-6-maps-release-review-memes/
05:12 PM on 09/21/2012
_I like reeding this artickle over an over. - the more i reed it, the more it make's me wand to type and spel like dis.
Two bad i cant type and spel like dis in my Hufington post Proflie.
It wuold bee so mush fun.
- And if you believe that...
...whyy...you'd believe anything.
_*L.O.L.* ☻_
12:40 PM on 09/21/2012
Ok I have an iPhone 4 and the auto correct does not malfunction like this and as often as this persons portrayal. This article had all the makings of being a good informative piece but an over exertion of the facts have this executive editor hamming it up a bit. The article is rather boring at a certain point where it is just repetitive I know we all enjoy seeing a slip up now and again from a company or person that has been consistent in their works, but this is just plain overkill.
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Trapped in Arizona
This, I believe* (*subject to change)
10:37 AM on 09/21/2012
When we sadly lost Steve Jobs, people wondered: "Will Jobs' genius remain in Apple's future products?" It seems that may have been answered.
12:52 PM on 09/21/2012
Trapped in Arizona.... I am one of those people. I've been on engadget, cnet, aol, and huff post posting the same exact thing. If this is the first of more to come then the future of Apple iOS products are indeed lost. I just didn't feel at all that this was the device or the iOS that was going to make me want the next device as I have in past years. Even the keynote introducing the new iOS 6 and later the iPhone 5 was errie different. MR.Jobs you are missed indeed!!!
10:29 AM on 09/21/2012
Funny an AOL employee knocks Apple. I have been an AOL user for wll over 20 years. Service and applications have gone downhill since their problems began.
10:24 AM on 09/21/2012
I have a new iPad. Auto-correction is turned off. It's just something that isn't necessary.
10:21 AM on 09/21/2012
Sweetie, throw that phone in the trash and go back to chiseling your articles on stone tablets and navigating by looking at the sun. Thanks for reminding us how pampered, spoiled, and bratty most Americans are in this "modern" age.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
HalfYourBattle
10:59 AM on 09/21/2012
You have an iPhone, don't you?
11:09 AM on 09/21/2012
I don't have a cell phone.  Yet somehow I still manage to live my life.
10:20 AM on 09/21/2012
Was this written by an adult or a child? There is so much wrong with it that it must be assumed it was a child.
10:50 AM on 09/21/2012
that's the whole point! she wrote it on her iphone and that's what autocorrect does to you.
11:02 AM on 09/21/2012
If you read more carefully, she said she wrote the article on the iPhone to demonstrate how poorly the autocorrect feature works.
10:19 AM on 09/21/2012
I love the iPhone and everything about it. Last night I did the update to i OS 6 and personally love it. The new maps app is amazing I think.. tested it out this morning going to work and no problems at all, it actually kept me out of traffic with a re-route. So I'm happy!
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
J0E1
Don't blame me, I'm not a republicrat.
02:55 PM on 09/21/2012
Welcome to the 21st century.  The rest of us have been navigating turn-by-turn on our phones for years.
HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
Jaskoen
03:15 PM on 09/21/2012
Thanks Kevin! Your check is in the mail.

--Apple
09:59 AM on 09/21/2012
Happy with my Samsung Note. Can change my map & nav apps when i want. $50.

To all the iPhone users: when was the last time you changed your own battery?
12:14 PM on 09/21/2012
It's an electronic device people, but to be the first to have a crack at your post I will say never changed an iPhone battery. Nope, never...never done it...Ahhhh Nope, but Maps and Nav's apps are choices we can make on any smartphone that's the beauty of apps.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jtwalk45
09:58 AM on 09/21/2012
there is a Broadway in Bayonne,nj
09:23 AM on 09/21/2012
What's wrong with the new maps app for apple? Of course an Android phone has a better map feature, that's one of the major things google does. So what. They all have their +'s and -'s, just get the one that works best for you and get on with your life.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
HalfYourBattle
10:38 AM on 09/21/2012
Half of the article was about what was wrong with the maps app by Apple. Did you even read it?
12:18 PM on 09/21/2012
Ummm.... The Whole Article was about what's wrong with the Apple maps and auto correct.I hope Apple will get it together because as an idevice owner I did not update to iOS 6. will not do so until this is better.
09:17 AM on 09/21/2012
I have been using free map quest app. Works really well and has voice
12:21 PM on 09/21/2012
So have I....Yes it works fairly well although it's had it's fair share of hang up, but overall a dependable app when you need it.
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realsurfin
Pardon me, can you help out a fellow American
09:14 AM on 09/21/2012
I see a day when Google and Samsung get to squish a rotten apple. Next year will be the start of some serious phone wars.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
HalfYourBattle
10:40 AM on 09/21/2012
Agreed. Especially since Google now owns Motorola. We should be seeing some heavy hitting competition.